LDS Leaders May Choose to Speak in Native Language at General Conference

Dale Jones, an LDS Church spokesman, said in a statement today that speakers “whose primary language is not English now have the choice to deliver their talks in their native tongue.”

In cases when speakers give their address in other languages, Jones said, “English subtitles will be shown on screens in the Conference Center and a live English interpretation will be provided for all other English-language broadcasts including satellite, cable, television and the Internet.

We may have many general authorities choose to speak Spanish during conference but the interesting one will be whether or not President Uchtdorf will speak German or continue with his fluent English as he has so far. What are your thoughts? How many speakers do you think will speak in their native language this coming fall? Leave your comment below.

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John Huntinghouse currently runs the LDS S.M.I.L.E. website full-time with his amazing co-founder and wife, Kara and they have three adorable kids. He is an adjunct professor at LDS Business College in the Social Media Marketing Department and he is a lover of all things pasta.

I know that some of the apostles (Elder Scott, at least) that know two languages record the dubbed versions of their talks themselves in the languages they know. So if Pres. Uchtdorf decides to give his address in German, those of us watching at home may still here his awesome voice speaking English!

I hope he will speak in German! I think it will require my children to pay closer attention 😀 People with younger children that cannot read might find this difficult though. I think it would be good for English speaking members to see what it is like, to be on the other end of things. Sometimes we take things for granted…